Goldy locks! Now you can dye your HAIR gold - and it'll glow fluorescent red in a nightclub

Since almost the beginning of human civilisation, gold has been the marker of power and prestige. Those who have wanted to advertise their status have done so with golden jewellery, weaponry - and even teeth.

Well, now, for the first time, researchers have found a way to use the most valued of precious metals to dye human hair - promising gold lovers the opportunity to have a genuine golden locks.

And, perhaps most excitingly, for those who like to dance their Friday and Saturday nights away, the resulting mane will shine red beneath UV lights.

Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger: Scientists have developed a technique that will actually dye hair with nanoparticles of gold - and, best of all, it will fluoresce red underneath the UV lights of a nightclub

However, those who may be reaching for the salon number to book an appointment should take note that the dyeing process is not as straightforward as simply getting a red-tint.

Your precious locks must first be bleached white, and even then it takes seven hours of dyeing before they get the first hint of a gold tint. It takes more than a fortnight to get the fluorescing red accent throughout each strand.

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If that didn't sound arduous enough, the dyeing process needs powerful chloroauric acid which, with a pH of 12.5, is far more caustic than classic alkaline her perm, which uses ammonium thioglycolate with a pH of nine or ten.

But, although you'll be paying a stylist a handsome sum for the length of the treatment and the due care and attention needed to apply it, the dye is relatively cheap - since the amount of gold used is small.

Only 0.4 or 0.5 per cent of the hair's weight is needed in gold to coat strands effectively, Phillipe Walter of the University of Pierre and Marie Curie toldChemical & Engineering News. That means the amount of gold needed for the average head of hair - about 100g - would cost about £19 ($30).

But it'll take a little while down the salon... It takes seven hours of dyeing before they get the first hint of a gold tint and more than a fortnight to get the fluorescing red accent throughout each strand

The dyed hair's red fluoroescence is a result of the way the gold nanoparticles interact with the hair fibres, said Dr Walter, who led the research at the Paris-based university.

He explained how the nanoparticles bind to sulfur inside the cysteine amino acids of the hair, then form a so-called surface plasmon when excited by the dark light. It is this plasmon that makes the hair fluoresce red, he added.

It is not the first time researchers have managed to dye fibres with gold. A team in New Zealand last year reported dyeing lamb's wool with gold nanoparticles.

But Dr Walter said his team's approach was novel since that experiment made the nanoparticles beforehand and deposited them on the wool, while his team found a way to make the nanoparticles form on the hair itself.

For the ravers: The dyed hair's red fluorescence
is a result of the nanoparticles binding to sulfur inside the cysteine
amino acids of the hair, then forming a so-called surface plasmon when
excited by the dark light

Michael Cortie, of the University of Technology, Sydney, told C&EN he was not surprised at the French team's findings.

Dr Walter, disappointingly, did not point to fashion as a future possible area to benefit from the research. Instead he said he imagines using the gold nano-particled hair as a means to detect toxic compounds in solution.